Facebook - almost everyone has an account in it. When I personally met up with someone for the first time and become comfortable with each other, the question that (either I or that person) always asked was "do you have facebook? let me add them". The social network made by Mark Zuercgberg has won the heart of people worldwide with more than 750 million of active users.
One of the primary reasons why they join this social network simply because they want to socialise with other people. Facebook gives us lot of benefits such as socialising with people that you never know beforehand, sharing pictures and videos, entertainment, online shopping and many other. However, when it comes to socialise with people that you never know beforehand, it also becomes one of the major drawbacks.
In Indonesia, several series of child kidnapping happened last year. There were 67 Facebook-related reports of child kidnapping cases that happened between January-May 2010. The motives behind were varies from asking for ransom to deliberately abducted the child for adoption. Australia has a similar problem as there were many paedophile cases happened last year due to this social network. I believe many other countries have social-network-related problems as well.
This problem worries me a lot since I and all of you may have under-age sister or cousin or niece that might be the next child victim due to social network.
I know if you want to join this social network you need to be at least 13 years old. But a 13 years old child is still too young to understand the world's bitter reality.
What do you think they as government official, social network owner, parents or might even school teacher should do to prevent or even stop this problem??
Criminals are getting smarter these days they know what the kids are up to and have hundreds way to kidnap. I think the parents can watch what their kids are doing online. Customise the privacy settings will certainly help alot (who can view your wall, send you message, or send you friend request)
ReplyDeleteGreat start to your blogging career, Farissa.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with you. The kidnappings and pedophile cases are not due to Facebook or social media. They are due to the people who commit these crimes. "Old" media reports these incidents by blaming the "new" media (their competitors). I believe that the crimes would still occur even if social media didn't exist.
Read what Laurel Papworth has to say on this issue.
What do others think?
@wags: It's said that they know each other from social network and the crime happened when they meet up in the real world. In other words, they use social media to find a target, get to know them and the bad thing happen afterwards.
ReplyDelete@diandra: I agree with you that parent plays an important role in protecting their children however, it becomes harder to control the use of internet as they can access it through their mobile phone.
i think kids should be educated in schools and informed well about this situation...parents should also be able to keep tracking on what their kids are doing and interacting. that's probably the best solution for now.
ReplyDeleteas a parent of a 13 and 15 year old, it's very very difficult to monitor your kids internet activity and they just LOVE facebook and social media! So much so that my tv at home is hardly turned on and I'm convinced that organisations will increasingly move their advertising spend away from tv and more towards SMM / internet. As for the perps, parents still have a responsibility to speak with their children and alert them to "stranger danger" and bullying, even as they move into the teens.
ReplyDeleteI think someone just trying to make Facebook heard bad. Some people can misuse Facebook for crime and then run away. I think Facebook could increase the privacy and security settings to make sure it won't happen again in the future
ReplyDeleteIn the situation you mention, FB was used to target, however, if FB didn't exist, the criminal could have found some other means of doing the crime. I wouldn't blame FB as the cause for the crime.
ReplyDelete@monicautama, I like the idea of educating kids in schools on social media, how to use it responsibly etc.